Friday, September 28, 2007

Some more of Brycos photos while our camera is still in hospital. Here is the groaning orange tree, with half its fruit still on. This bohemoth is 80 years old and delivers scores of kilos of oranges. I am hunting down recipes for marmalade and orange liquer but not sure how many I'll get to this year.They are Ivy's favourite thing to chew on while she's teething.

Looking back at the house to the Hills Hoist you can see the rosemary bush that marks the edge of the vege garden.

The beautiful Ivy, of course, mid bum-shuffle, and one of Keith's bookshelves...work of a master craftsman. If you could see the details you may be moved to tears, knowing the beauty of what Man can create given time, brains and just a touch of Aspergers. (Keith thinks this should read 'just a touch of class'. I stand corrected).

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Even our hair looks hungover in this photo. Scientist Bryce came to stay on the weekend, armed with a bottle of Italian Limoncella. Excited to have big-person company I drank much of it and tried to start a debate on what form the final apocalypse would take. It pains me a little to remember trying to discuss peak oil and end-of-days while Keith and Bryce, eco-scientists both, sort of looked a bit embarrassed for me and nodded encouragingly.

As I write Keith is playing blues on the piano while Ivy shakes her head like a dog (blow, cat, blow!)

Friday, September 14, 2007

Well, the big Daddy is home, safe and well, if jetlagged and smelly. He's off again this morning to Canberra- but just for one night, and then home for a week.

Ivy has been sick all week with a yukky virus - erupting a bit (both ends), really lethargic and sporting a scary florid rash. There have been a couple of trips to the medical centre, including one where we were given instructions on how to extract a urine sample from a baby. (Lets just say it involves a bag with sticky edges and a lot of luck - and we never managed it). The nurse instructing us had the following exchange with Keith:

Nurse - So you just need enough wee to cover the base of the specimen jar - not heaps. Keith - OK, so just cover the bottom?Nurse - (leaning in with the earnestness of the health professional) Ah, well, actually there are three holes. You want to make sure you get the bag over the top two, and then...Keith - Um, I get the anatomy... I meant the jar...

How we laughed.

Ivy has taken to sleeping in our bed while she's been sick - no fun for us. She likes to curl in close to me, driving me closer and closer to the edge of the bed, or else spread out sideways, head in Keith's belly and feet kicking me. In her first few feverish days, she was waking me every 45 minutes, and wouldn't let me turn the bedside light off, so I would spend all night contorted uncomfortably under lights, with frequent kickings. Geez I felt for David Hicks. new habits:

1. Baby sleep cycles last about 45 minutes, and Ivy used to wake up, grizzle and squirm for a while and often go back to sleep. Now she's taken to sitting up in her cot after each short sleep, but can't get down again, so stares at the door, or faces forlornly into the corner and whimpers until somebody appears to rescue her.

2. I don't know if it's a Piagetian developmental stage or a complex manipulational tool but Ivy has started throwing everything off her high chair tray and then peering over the side at it for long periods. Like a dog with a bone, there's method to her madness though - yesterday an ominous silence led me to her sitting on the floor chewing on a piece of vegemite sandwich she had 'stored' under the couch.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Missing Keith so much. Here's a couple of photos from the last week for him to check out in his Hong Kong layover. Nikki took the park ones at a picnic last week and the moody Joplinesque number is by the talented Shirin - how lucky I am to have a photographer buddy.

The garden is looking good after lots of rain. Planted some cucumbers, more spinach, more lettuce, and I'm seeding out tomatos, eggplants and capsicum.

Tomorrow night the great unwashed one is home - we may never let him go away again.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

While Keith is in Italy, Ivy and I are staying in Turramurra, which, with the arrival of Sam and Isabelle, has very quickly become a crazy baby-hotel at high season.

Mum and Sam went to the shops looking at wedding shoes (just like de-facto shoes but less slutty) and I had the babies alone for an hour. It was mayhem. Sam came home as I was changing Ivy's nappy on the floor and holding Isabelle up with one hand while singing maniacally 'We don't hit or grab our friends...(doodah, doodah)...' When Ivy wasn't taking Isabelles dummy out of her mouth and sucking on it, Isabelle was taking big gummy bites out of Ivy's face.

Mum and Dad have a 70 kilo retriever called Max, a gentle giant who has been forced to the bottom of the pack and is looking very depressed, banished out of the action. No other option though. Keith is his particular favourite but most of the family have nearly been sexually violated by Max at one time or another.

Watched mums secret show of shame - the Bold and the Beautiful - which ended with the heartfelt lines: Í can't believe you've implanted my mothers eggs into my ex-husbands new wife.' Dad is off playing scientist Stanley Milgram in a National Geographic Channel tele-movie today. The shoot was in Newtown, and he drove the campervan so he would have somewhere comfortable to sit and read his book at lunchtime.

Great picnic on Monday with Lisa, Nik, Matilda and baby bump. Nikki is only weeks off birth and the baby is doing Alien-style gymnastics against her big belly. So funny to think that the next time I see her she'll be plus-one.

Finally managed to speak to Keith today. From getting up at 4am in Coledale to hitting the sheets in Milan, his journey took him 52 hours. He sounds so tired. He rang last night at midnight. The mobile jerked me awake, so I leapt out of bed, tripped over the baby-gate, landed on the dog (fortunately not in a sexy manner), missed the call and woke the baby.

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Hello, hola, bonjour, saluton, etc. Welcome to my blog, where I aim to explore some of the juicer chunks of domestic life. I am Rachael, a mum to three kids under six and a wife to one work-from-home solar scientist. Our working stats are three parts chaos to one part serenity and I am always trying to improve that equation. I cook, I clean, I whinge, I write. My back hurts and I possibly/probably have head lice.